People of the South Wind
by DamnSkippy
Summary: Through the S5 finale, "The Beginning in the End." Extreme conditions breed extreme change. Not even Booth and Brennan are immune to this fact.


**People of the South Wind**

In fairytales, this is how it goes.

Two lovers are parted, they pine for each other and count the days until they can once again touch and feel that connection that is missing in their lives. At night, they dream of their reunion, their hearts beating wildly the moment their eyes meet, their skin burning in anticipation of their fingers twining and lips colliding.

_Absence makes the heart grow fonder. _It's an expression these lovers tell each other when they part. It is never questioned that it could be any other way.

In fact, there can be no happily-ever-after ending if this is, indeed, not the truth.

And it is the truth. In fairytales.

_**Booth's Truth**_

In the desert of Afghanistan there are soldiers' limbs being blown off as he stares through the blood haze in shock and then drops and rolls behind the nearest rock for cover.

There are children kneeling beside dead mothers wailing while they try to shake the life back into them.

There are young men who, with innocent eyes laced with fear, look into his for assurance, praying that his knowledge and skills are enough to get them home. Truly, there isn't enough time to even make them proficient in cleaning their weapons properly because the enemy is like a mob of zombies that don't need sleep and keep coming no matter how many are killed.

Booth's world is now a sandy landscape of hidden tombs and sniper nests.

It's nothing like hunting down murderers in metropolitan D.C. and a part of him feels duped. The other part feels useless to these mere boys who depend on him for their very lives.

But he does his best. He trains them, drills them. Yells and screams at them to get it goddamn right. And if he has to call them by name, he reads their uniforms and purposely does not put a name to a face.

Because Booth never wants to remember them or what happens here. He did that once, naming a boy after another fresh-faced, innocent soldier who died on his watch. He wants more than anything to never have another child who has to bear the name of his guilt. So Sergeant Major Booth spends no free time in the company of these troops and makes no friends.

There are rare moments during the long days of drilling and repetition and death, however, that he allows himself a break for his own sanity. He spends that precious time thinking of his son because he is the anchor and the only truth left. But when night falls and dreams of family and loved ones should keep him warm and give him peace, there is no corner dark enough to hide in. There is only half sleep with one eye open and waking nightmares.

In Afghanistan, _absence_ means death and _hearts_ do not grow fonder. Hearts stop beating.

_**Brennan's Truth**_

On Buru in the islands of Maluku, it rains but it's never refreshing because the humidity is so high it's like walking through gauze. There are no white sand beaches and no days spent surfing and snorkeling.

There is only mud - an island's worth of it. Earth so thick she sinks twelve inches with each step. There is no point in wearing shoes anymore since they only end up sucked off her feet and buried for future anthropologists to discover.

Everyone has "gone native" stripping down to the bare essentials. It took less than a week in the wet, humid clime before she took a dull knife to her long hair just to get it off her neck and be relieved of the extra weight.

Brennan's once-intern is far less chatty these days, the reality of such a strenuous dig like a stone crushing her spirit. She no longer speaks of what a triumph this find will be for her career but dwells mostly on trying to remember what a real bath feels like.

And while Brennan doesn't have to wonder since she is quite capable of imagining what water feels like on the epidermis, she does think a lot about yogurt. And fresh salad. And French fries. She never thought in this day and age and on as prestigious a dig as this one, that she would have to deal with possible starvation.

But no one bothered telling the team about the political unrest in Maluku and what that might mean for their ability to have regular supplies shipped in. Neither did anyone tell them that they would be surrounded by illegal logging and farming and how that would make the area they worked in unsafe and a flood zone.

And no one said that when the monsoons came, they would have to abandon the dig to move to higher ground and be tent-bound for weeks at a time. And how the sickness would come.

On Buru, the days are spent wishing for dry clothes, hot chocolate and medicine. And as much as she knows logically that a body must dream to survive, her sleep is black and cold and all she remembers of it are moans of the sick and hungry.

On Buru, _absence_ means another day with no food and _heart_s are just muscles that grow weaker without it.

_**In Reality  
**_

She is sitting on their bench. Booth is late because the first person he went to see was Parker as soon as his feet touched US soil. He can't make himself feel bad about the late thing, though, even though a part of him seems to remember he would have before.

As he gets closer, their eyes lock for a second. They both see it. The difference in each of them. They're older. More beat down. There are clouds in their eyes.

They look away – she at her hands twisting in her lap and he at his military shined boots until he sees the edge of the bench. He drops his duffel bag, turns and slowly lowers his body to sit beside her.

Neither move to touch and the air feels heavy, like a veil, between them.

Booth breathes in, tilts his head back and exhales.

Brennan, not usually the one who can read body language, has learned quite a lot, however, about exhaustion and pain. She turns her head slightly and catalogs the slouched shoulders, curved spine, wide eyes staring at nothing, mouth open and breathing in slowly.

"Are you tired?" she asks returning her eyes to her hands.

"Huh? What?" Booth rubs his face, grains of sand digging into his skin.

"I asked if you're tired. You seem exhausted." Turning, she takes a better look but isn't sure what she's seeing.

"I'm...," Booth leans forward hesitating as he rests his elbows on his knees and scans the mall, not focusing on anyone or anything in particular, "glad to be home."

Finally, he looks sideways. "How about you, Bones? How are you?"

Pursing her lips and averting her glance, she says "I'm fine. I...I've been back for three days so I'm acclimated unlike you who, I suspect, are jetlagged."

He laughs softly shaking his head. The laugh dies as his face becomes blank. "Some things never change."

The way he says it frightens her. She can't be sure – she's never sure about these things - but she thinks there's a measure of thankfulness? Perhaps acceptance?

"And some do." She clears her throat and tells him. "Daisy's dead." Even she hears the sadness in her voice. She's not a robot after all it seems.

She waits for his reaction but it's not the Booth one she expected.

"How?" he asks simply with no apparent shock or dismay.

"There was a sickness. We're not sure what it was exactly. There were no doctors, no medicine, no food...," she trails off, the pain of the experience still raw in her throat.

She feels him sit back against the bench, senses his shoulders, his whole body, go stiff. But what she doesn't hear is surprise or even compassion in his voice.

"I'm sorry."

It's as if he's saying _I'm hungry_ or _I've got a cold_. Like he's said "I'm sorry" so many times they're only words now and he can't muster or remember the emotion to match.

"Booth–" She reaches for his arm but he stands quickly and takes a step back.

"I think I should get home and get some rest." He bends down and grabs his duffel and slings it over his shoulder. "I'm scheduled to be back at the Bureau day after tomorrow and, as you said, I am feeling jetlagged."

"Sure, of course," she says trying not to watch him leave.

She wonders in this moment if she hadn't gone away but had remained at the Jeffersonian if this would still feel so strange. If Booth had stayed and only she had gone away, would their dynamic be this awkward?

What has happened to the center?

Then it hits her. She _feels_ the difference. Everything is a kilter because in this bizarre world of a year later, in this not-coma, not-fantasy reality, she is Booth and Booth is Brennan. And when basic matter changes, when the core is shifted off its axis, then everything around it is thrown off balance.

They are, in spite of everything she's ever believed, fundamentally different people. The scientist part of her brain is straining to accept it, but accept it she must. Because there is no other choice except to acknowledge reality.

And she wants to share her thoughts – no, her feelings – with her best friend.

"Booth, wait!"

He turns but stays his distance.

"You're wrong. I...I was wrong. I can change. I have changed."

He looks at her and for a brief moment his eyes soften and he's her Booth. But, then, she sees he is one step ahead of her. His "Bones" brain figured it out before she did.

"I know. The problem is...we both have."

He smiles softly and then turns and walks away.

She watches his silhouette become smaller the farther he gets until he's just a blur. Then she feels the water on her cheeks and realizes she's crying. She just wishes she understood why.

~End~


End file.
